THE SYMBOLISM OF THE WOMAN

The woman of the lake.

Guinevere, whose name signifies “white spirit,” is twice targeted for abduction. Maelvas takes her to Glastonbury, identified with the oceanic Glass City and Avalon, leading to a siege and eventual reconciliation. This episode includes a Christian element where Arthur purportedly grants the island to the Church, a likely attempt to supplant Celtic-Hyperborean traditions by appropriating them. Glastonbury, a major center of early Christianity in England, sought to Christianize Nordic-Celtic traditions, even claiming to be the ancient Avalon. Texts like the *De antiquitate glastoniensis ecclesiae* suggest Glastonbury was originally called ygnis gutrin, meaning “glass island,” later becoming Glastiburi, interpreted as a fabricated “traditional succession.” The claim that Arthur died and was buried in Glastonbury further solidified its role as a center of missionary Christianity.

Later, while Arthur seeks to conquer Rome, his nephew Modred usurps the throne and Guinevere. In the ensuing war, Modred is killed, but many knights of the Round Table die. Arthur is mortally wounded and taken to Avalon, where women like Morgande attempt to heal him. However, his wounds reopen annually, and his subjects await his return. A tradition holds that Arthur will return from Avalon to resume his reign, preventing the Britons from appointing a new king. Other versions depict Arthur in a palace atop a mountain or, in a Christianized narrative, buried in Glastonbury, now portrayed as Avalon. This mirrors the wounded king motif, awaiting healing in an inaccessible place to “return.”

This is further paralleled by the Celtic saga’s theme of a kingdom devastated due to plebeian revolt or the king’s wound inflicted by a spear or flaming sword.

 

 

THE UNIVERSAL RULER. POTENTATES. BLOODLINE LORE. ANTICHRIST

Emperor or invisible Universal Ruler and its manifestations permeate Arthur’s saga. This archetype, tied to cyclical manifestations and avatars, posits a single principle manifesting in diverse forms at specific times, latent in between.

Kings embodying this principle inspire legends of retreat to an inaccessible seat, awaiting future manifestation or awakening. The suprahistorical merges with the historical, transforming real figures into symbols, while conversely, names outlive their referents, pointing beyond themselves.

Regality’s sleep or apparent death mirrors an altered, wounded state concerning its external representatives, not its intangible principle. Hence, the wounded or weakened king persists in an inaccessible center, beyond time and death.

SYNCRETISM BETWEEN INDO ARYAN AND GREEK TRADITIONS

Ancient symbolism manifested in forms like the Hindu tale of Mahakasyapa, asleep in a mountain, awakened by shells at the Buddha’s renewed manifestation.

This period coincides with the Universal Ruler Sarpkha’s arrival, whose name, meaning “shell,” signifies the King of the World’s awakening and the primordial tradition’s release from its shell-like enclosure during crises. Similarly, Iranian tradition tells of Kereshaspa, wounded and slumbering, sustained by the fravashi, awaiting Saoshyant’s advent to fight the Arhimanic forces. Saoshyant heralds a future, a triumphant kingdom of light.

The doctrine of Kalki-avatara relates to ParaSu-Rarna, a heroic figure of the Olympian-Hyperborean tradition. This figure, dwelling in a northern seat with the Aryan colonizers’ forefathers, allegedly slew rebellious warriors and his own mother, symbols of overcoming degraded virility and spirituality shifted to feminine-maternal tutelage during the transition between the Silver (Lunar) Age and the Bronze (Titanic) Age. ParaSu-Rama retreated to Mount Mahendra to live as an ascetic, awaiting a new manifestation: Kalki-avatara, a sacred king destined to triumph over the Dark Age.

Kalki is symbolically born in Sambhala, a name designating the sacred Hyperborean center. His spiritual teacher is Parasu-Rama, who initiates him into the sacred sciences and invests him with regal power. Siva bestows upon him a white winged horse (identified with Kalki), an omniscient parrot, and a bright sword.

Led by the parrot, Kalki wins Padma or Padmavati, a king’s daughter protected by a curse, and marries her. Kalki and his warriors cross a sea that turns to stone, reaching Sambhala, transformed and mistaken for Indra’s dwelling.

Sambhala symbolizes the new manifestation of the primordial center, housing the solar and lunar dynasties’ representatives, kings Maru and Deva, preserved in the Himalayas.

The Himalayas are thus conceived as the region where the primordial age endures. A final battle ensues, Kalki’s struggle against the Dark Age, personified by KalI and the demons Toka and Vikoka, who are resurrected upon falling. Ultimately, Kalki prevails.

 

THE GOLDEN AGE, NEW AGE DREAMS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

They cast their kings as fulfilling biblical prophecy. Many saw the Roman Empire, in its pagan phase, as inaugurating a new Golden Age, ruled by Kronos, believed to slumber in Hyperborea. Augustus’s reign saw Sibylline prophecies announce a “solar” king, a *rex a coelo* or *ex sole missus*, echoed by Horace’s invocation of Apollo, Hyperborean god of the Golden Age, and Virgil’s proclamation of a new Golden Age, Apollo, and heroes.

Augustus thus symbolically claimed Apollo as his “father.” The phoenix, found in Hadrian and Antoninus’s imagery, connected to resurrecting the primordial age through Rome. This foreshadowing of Rome’s connection to the suprahistorical imperium underlay theories of Rome’s persistence and *aeternitas*, transposing the principle’s essence to its historical embodiment. In Byzantium, Methodius’s imperial myth revived themes regarding Alexander the Great: a king believed dead awakens to build a new Rome; after a brief reign, Gog and Magog, contained by Alexander, rise, triggering the “last battle.”

Similarities exist between Frederick II or Arthur asleep on a mountain, Arthur’s knights charging from its peak, and pagan-Nordic Valhalla, Odin’s mountain dwelling, the host of slain warriors chosen by Valkyries. This host is the Wild Hunt, the mystical army led by Odin in the last battle against “elemental beings.”

The wounded king, the sleeping king, the king seemingly dead yet alive, the king seemingly alive yet dead, are equivalent or converging themes recurring in the Grail cycle. These themes gain power at the West’s attempt to rebuild itself according to a spiritually virile and traditionally imperial civilization.